Recitatif, By Toni Morrison

The association of homosexuality with filth begins in childhood for David and most certainly in his relationship with his father. His identity confusion can be seen from early on as he mentions: “I was in full flight from him. I did not want him to know me. I did not want anyone to know me” (Baldwin 16). Indeed, David’s father install in him from the very beginning the notion of a white, heterosexual, masculine American male. He wants his son, whom he addresses as “Butch” to “grow up to be a man” (90) and not “a Sunday school teacher” (15). The “teacher” to which his father refers to can be understood as a threat to masculinity because “the teacher” is almost surely a woman and he wishes only a life of “butch” for his son. This notion surfaces

Although both the previous events did put David into an adverse position, the following experience changed David’s outlook on life for the better. Finally there was someone to tell David the true meaning of mankind, Uncle Axel. Uncle Axel tells him to be proud of his telepathic abilities, instead of praying to be what everyone else thinks is the true image. Uncle Axel also changes David's outlook on the true image of man, he explains to him how it's not one's physical features that define him, but what's in his mind.

Throughout the entire movie we can see that David is the character that changes the most. David is portrayed as a nerdy and lazy teen that spends all his time watching the show pleasantville and eating junk food. The director shows us that his life at home is not really good and his only escape is while watching pleasantville. When he gets teleported into the show and town Pleasantville he’s stuck in the traditional way of living there, not changing anything and constantly worrying about his sister Jennifer altering the entire town. His fear of change sprouts with the worry of the disturbances his sister will create. In this circumstance the power of fear leads him to be controlling of the situations. We can see this how he tries to control the change when he finds out Mary Sue has been intimate with Skip and this creates a domino effect for

David changes his mind about Uncle Frank through the experience. He used to be David’s idol and he adored him. But that all changed when David’s housekeeper and baby sitter, Marie Little Soldier, becomes violently ill and is in need of a doctor. Wes Hayden, David’s father, calls his brother Frank, who is the town doctor, to come and see her. Strangely enough, Marie Little Soldier refuses to be alone in the room with Frank. Later on, Marie tells David’s mother horrible things that Frank has been doing to Native American women. David’s mother, Gail, tells Wes and David overhears. She says, ‘Wesley, your brother has been raping these women. These girls. These Indian girls…… I was beginning already to think of Uncle Frank as a criminal…Charming, affable Uncle Frank was gone for good”.

James Baldwin’s novel, Giovanni’s Room, follows the protagonist, David, as he embarks on a self-journey to establish an identity, personal and sexual, for himself. David is trapped in an American ideal of masculinity and homosexuality that does not define who he truly is, a homosexual male. David tries to pull away from his true desires and constantly struggles to embrace the heteronormative American life instead of being honest and accepting his true self. Throughout the entire novel, David associates darkness, filth and containment with homosexuality, queerness and different spaces that represent sin. Towards the end of the novel, at the end of his self-journey, David, although not literally contained or confined to Giovanni’s room or other dark spaces, does not truly resolve his issues with his true identity and internally will never truly be free.

In the novel Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison depicts the many aspects of self-actualization, and the difficulties of growing up in a maltreated life. The story revolves around generations of black family in the south during the segregation of whites and blacks. The character of Macon Dead jr., suffers from a sheltered life. Macon jr., is unaware of his family’s history, and the cruel reality of mistreatment during segregation. In the sheltered and confusing environment Macon jr., lives pushes him to find the authentic individual within himself. Macon jr., evolves through the descriptions, events, and experiences of others. But, who is responsible for making Macon jr.,’s journey of self-actualization to be so slow and difficult. His parents, Macon Dead sr., and Ruth Foster Dead, represent the obstacle hindering Macon jr., from his true authentic identity. Many of Macon jr.,’s major problems are a direct result of his parents suffocating mistakes.

At the age of 5 years old, not only did he began to take showers with his father, but when they went to the beach club, his mother bathed him in the shower in the presence of other naked women. By the age of 6 years old, David noticed the power men had over women, “when a male entered the women’s side of the bathhouse, all the women shrieked”. (Gale Biography). At the age of 7 and 8 years old, he experienced a series of head accidents. First, he was hit by a car and suffered head injuries. A few months later he ran into a wall and again suffered head injuries. Then he was hit in the head with a pipe and received a four inch gash in the forehead. Believing his natural mother died while giving birth to him was the source of intense guilt, and anger inside David. His size and appearance did not help matters. He was larger than most kids his age and not particularly attractive, which he was teased by his classmates. His parents were not social people, and David followed in that path, developing a reputation for being a loner. At the age of 14 years old David became very depressed after his adoptive mother Pearl, died from breast cancer. He viewed his mother’s death as a monster plot designed to destroy him. (Gale Biography). He began to fail in school and began an infatuation with petty larceny and pyromania. He sets fires,

One of the points that is consistently brought up in Toni Morrison’s Paradise is that of the all black town “Ruby”. Paradise uses the setting of Oklahoma to discuss how many black towns are shaped by past history and religion. While the town in this novel is fictional, there have been real all black towns in the United States, and it seems that these towns influenced many aspects of the town Ruby, which is why it is so easy to imagine that the story could actually be real. Many authors have written in general about the novel, and specifically about the town within it.

of my life was exactly the vision in which I myself most desperately needed to

This is when Giovanni makes his appearance. He is handsome and Italian and even though David refuses to admit it, he is very attracted to this young, dark man. After a while he ends up in his bedroom where he stays for several weeks. That he is having a homosexual affair is tearing on David, and he despises Giovanni as well as he loves him. In the book, David is saying to him self: ‘The beast which Giovanni awakened in me would never go to sleep again; but one day I would not be with Giovanni anymore'. When he finds joy in Giovanni's room, it quickly becomes clear that it cannot last, and that love does not always conquer all, and that it actually stands no chance against fear and self-delusion. He is fighting a constant battle against something he can't remove or ignore.

with a group of homosexual men who are unable to find lasting satisfaction in any

He argues that psychologists as early as Freud have determined the importance of a person’s sexual identity in defining a person’s psychological make-up and then points out that it is impossible for a reader to divorce their sexuality from a reading of any text, that a reader brings to a text the entirety of his experiences and identity and therefore, he brings his sexual identity to the reading of a text also. I use the male pronoun at this point in this paper because the author of the article examined the homosexual male reader, which is separate from either the heterosexual identity and also separate from a lesbian identity because "the homosexual male, in spite of his ‘difference’ is still a biological man, and very importantly, he is a socially constructed man, with all that this implies for phallocentrism and patriarchy" (73). Therefore, it can be seen, a reader can neither divorce their sexual identity nor their gender identity from a reading of a text; in fact, because these factors play a major role in a reader’s psychological make-up, they also play a major role in a

Though David represents a seemingly common boy at the time, he has several qualities that make him stand out. However, these character traits are never simply told to us. Instead, the implied author uses David’s actions, decisions, and beliefs to

In Foucault and Queer Theory Spargo defines queer theory as a nebulous group of cultural criticism and analysis of social power structures relating to sexuality . It is these power structures and aspects of culture that are responsible for the discourse that creates and informs ones understanding of gender, race, and sexuality. However these aspects of identity do not exist separately from one another, but are constructed in tandem throughout history. These layers of identity inform each other in a way that is difficult if not impossible to separate. They do not act independently with an additive effect but intersect constructing their own unique set of experiences and perspectives. In this paper I will be exploring queer theory

Have you ever seen the movie I Am David? Have you read the book? Well, if you answered yes to both questions, you know that while they are very similar there are many changes between two, including the cause of David’s friend, Johannes.